Sherdog's Guide to 'The Ultimate Fighter'

Could Team Dos Santos build momentum in week two of 'The
Ultimate Fighter' Season 13? | Sherdog.com

“Nobody ever died from being tired,” says Junior dos
Santos, giving his team some stern encouragement during
training as week two of “The Ultimate Fighter 13” begins.

Dos Santos is trying to build on his team’s win in the season’s
first fight, which saw Shamar
Bailey outpoint the Brock
Lesnar-coached Nordin Asrih
after two rounds. The victorious Shamar feels his team’s morale
could have gone south in a hurry if he had lost his fight. Bailey
says that some of his teammates aren’t as ready for all of this, in
a cerebral sense.

Team Dos Santos assistant coach Lew Polley
feels the same way, pointing to one member of the team in
particular.

“Keon is mentally struggling,” says Polley.

After taking a puke break during training, Keon
Caldwell explains that he has, indeed, been homesick and admits
that his head just hasn’t been on straight. He talks about how his
daughter was calling after him as he departed for the show.

“All I can hear is my daughter yelling for me,” says Caldwell.

Polley makes it clear that they plan to build Caldwell back up, but
after practice, Keon pulls Dos Santos aside and tells the coach
that he is planning to leave the show and return home.

Dos Santos attempts to talk Caldwell out of the hasty decision with
a tried-and-true “This is what you want, right?” speech. Both coach
and team feel Keon should continue on for his daughter’s sake.

In short order, UFC boss Dana White appears at the training center
and makes a beeline for Caldwell. He puts the screws to Keon by
pointing out that, if he loves his daughter so much, he should
stick around and try to achieve something for her and himself.

“Wanna be here? Wanna win? Love your daughter?” asks White. Keon
responds in the affirmative to all of the typical questions Dana
asks of those on the precipice of leaving, but “TUF” historians
will know that it’s never that easy. When someone is really
struggling with the realities of being on this reality show, any
excuse to go home becomes an intoxicating siren song.

Meanwhile, Brock’s team is having its own problems, as Lesnar is
already starting to lose patience with his squad after an 0-1
start.

“You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken s--t,” Brock says of
his crew. It’s a quick reversal of the heavyweight’s position from
last week, when he said he could perform such a feat. How quickly
salad can turn bad.

Still in control of the matchups, Dos Santos decides to pit his
second pick, Javier
Torres, against Chris Cope,
whom nobody is scared of. In fact, it is Cope who appears
frightened, his fist visibly trembling as he squares off against
Torres after the announcement.

Unfortunately, once again, “TUF” provides no subtitles for
Englishman Michael
Bowman, who describes Cope as “shaking like a s--tting duck” --
or at least that’s what it sounds like.

Polley picks apart Cope, with whom he has trained before, saying
Cope has “many glaring negatives” and is a “part-time fighter.”
Polley seems confident that he’ll be able to equip Javier with the
right game plan to handle Cope.

Speaking of Lew, after another rough session between Polley and
Caldwell, coach Dos Santos finds himself in the hallway with
Caldwell once again. This time, when Caldwell says he wants to
leave, “Cigano” relents and lets his fighter walk.

Keon says his goodbyes and gives a half-hearted “I might not even
get this chance again” speech to the camera. Dana weighs in, saying
that the only upside to Caldwell leaving is that they were able to
“get his ass out of here early” and bring someone “real” in
quickly.

Chris
Cope discusses the challenges of having a full-time job and
only being able to train during certain windows of time. It’s clear
that Lesnar doesn’t have a tremendous amount of faith in his
fighter as he gives his team an “every dog has his day” pep
talk.

Cope’s teammates feel the same way: as Clay
Harvison and Charlie
Rader discuss the fight, Rader says, “My money’s not on Chris;
I hope I’m wrong.”

En route to the fight, Cope reads a letter from his girl back home
telling him that it’s his destiny to compete on the show. His
daughter has sent him a stuffed rabbit, so that he can take a tiny
piece of home with him on the road.

His opponent is also fighting inspired.

“All your dreams can come true,” says Torres, explaining that his
mother thought he was crazy when he pointed to the UFC action on a
television screen in Mexico years ago. His mom popped him in the
head and told him he should be in school instead.

Now, Torres is about to step into that eight-sided cage. Having
just found out that he’s got a baby on the way, he’s equally juiced
to make mama and new mama-to-be proud.

“I tell you, the ultimate fighter of Season 13 is going to be a
Mexican guy,” he winks.

The first two rounds of Torres and Cope’s confrontation are fairly
tame and dominated by double underhooks. Torres takes the opening
frame, pushing the pace and tossing Cope to the ground to score
points before landing a knee that cuts Cope beneath the eye.

Neither man is up for a standup war. When jabs or kicks are thrown,
they inevitably tie up and head for the fence. Cope seems hesitant
to engage, but manages to do just enough to force a third and
deciding round.

In the overtime period, Cope pins Torres to the fence and gets busy
with knees. When they separate, Torres manages to throw and land
kicks, but the bulk of the round features Cope using double
underhooks to push Torres against the cage. As a result, Cope gets
the decision and gives Team Lesnar its first win.

“I think they orchestrated the waltz for two rounds,” says Lesnar,
adding that there was nothing “fancy” or “cool” about Cope’s
performance, but that his fighter persevered.

“No worries. It’s normal for us. That’s why we are fighters; you’ll
come back stronger after this fight,” coach Dos Santos tells
Torres, trying to soften the sting of defeat. Ever-serious
assistant coach Polley isn’t so kind, telling the team that the
cheering they’re hearing from the Team Lesnar locker room should
eat them up inside.